The book of Mozilla has changed for each product released. There's a Wikipedia page that gives the history here [wikipedia.org]. An official page containing all the passages to date can be found here [mozilla.org]. And in case you're too lazy to click, here they are by browser:

Netscape:

And the beast shall come forth surrounded by a roiling cloud of vengeance. The house of the unbelievers shall be razed and they shall be scorched to the earth. Their tags shall blink until the end of days.

from The Book of Mozilla, 12:10

Mozilla:

And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold. The din of a million keyboards like unto a great storm shall cover the earth, and the followers of Mammon shall tremble.

from The Book of Mozilla, 3:31(Red Letter Edition)

Firefox:

And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.

And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced.
But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird.
The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire
and thunder upon them. For the beast had been
reborn with its strength renewed, and the
followers of Mammon cowered in horror.

Gotta love the small update size. More software should work this way and instead of giving us everything each time, just give the changes. Well... more windows software needs to do it, other platforms seem to manage it ok.

It's definately a role model that other software venders could learn from. For friends and family that I used to have to babysit their browser updates now all I have to do is let Firefox do it's thing. Seems to work well in Thunderbird too. It really does make it a lot easier for non-technical people to keep up-to-date and truth be told it makes it easier for a geek boy like me too.

The only other Windows program I have that seems to work as well is Azureus which is also opensource.

Aren't MS hotfixes usually pretty small? Service packs are big because they contain so many changes. It is difficult to "diff" a binary and it only works if you have a specific version of a binary installed (which most systems don't). And on Linux, you almost always have to download full packages to update. I would say it is linux that has this "problem," not Windows.

No doubt I'll get flamed for this, but...I hate the fact that the default Firefox update settings FORCE me to install the update once it's been downloaded. I may want to purposely test code on an older version of FF, or I may know that it breaks an extension and not want to install it. Whatsmore, there's actually no setting that lets you actually tell FF to check for updates, but not force you to install them once downloaded. Which is retarded.

It might have more to do with the natrual assumption Windows admins make about versions. With the Windows systems he knows that its upgraded to the latest version through either Automatic updates or through an intranet update. With multiple browsers with a different upgrade system he can not know for certain if your firefox is fully upgraded or is like most windows users computers and 50 versions out of date(there is a hell of a lot of issues caused by people who could have just upgraded their computer).

I've not found any technical details about the "incremental update" mechanism.
One would wonder how can this be accomplished with binary distributions (like DEB and RPM.) DLLs?
For the sources it means that the original complete source code is already available!
Maybe it is just a download manager a-la Acrobat Reader (for Windows).

I don't know how it works but it's b0rken. It's the second time already that i've been forced to uninstall FF and reinstall it, because after updating it was stuck in an endless loop and complaining that some resources were locked. Rebooting, removing the extension folder, checking for any open handles leading to firefox did not help. Coupling this with the general slowness and unresponsiveness and crash-prone-ness of FF, I've switched to Opera and I have no regrets. Heck, even a beta (an Opera one, I mean)

Right, it should, however it doesn't. Actually... their last suggestion is to wipe FF and reinstall it (duh) and even then, a fresh installation of FF with a grand total of 3-4 extensions fails to update.
The system has just booted. No firefox process has been started. The first thing to come up is the update dialog. THIS is the only thing that can have an open handle on firefox and therefore the updating mechanism must be locking itself. It would help if it lasted for more than half a second or left a log

Right, it should, however it doesn't. Actually... their last suggestion is to wipe FF and reinstall it (duh) and even then, a fresh installation of FF with a grand total of 3-4 extensions fails to update.

Try without any extensions, maybe one of them is causing trouble.

I have four extensions and the auto update worked fine:Adblock Plus 0.7NoScript 1.1.4FasterFox 1.0.3Slashdotter 1.5

Yes, I did. I don't usually give up troubleshooting easily:D Anyway it's been "fixed" by reinstalling and disabling updates (meh) because my "final" switch to Opera was not so final after all. But thanks for the suggestion!

So, finally, "incremental downloads" should actually be binary patches, as seen long long ago with Quartedeck's QEMM-386 [wikipedia.org].
Under opensource environment this is really hard to do because of the large number of choices users have to build their own binaries.
How is the binary patcher supposed to identify the correct place in my binary to insert the patch?
Or is The MF willing to provide their own binary distribution?
I fear that the "incremental download" feature is doomed to die soon!

On Windows and Mac, most users are likely using the binaries provided by Mozilla, and so the binary diff should work fine. Linux I imagine less are, since many distributions might provide slightly different builds for their environment. In these cases, the distribution should provide an updated version through their normal update channels.

As others have pointed out, Mozilla does provide their own binary distributions of Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux. The vast majority of Firefox users are probably on Windows, which means incremental binary patches are a godsend in terms of time, bandwidth, and getting the masses to install security fixes.With Linux, it depends entirely on whether you're using the Mozilla binary or your Linux distro's binary. If you want to run beta versions of Firefox, or if you want to keep current beyond what your d

1.5.0.3 just finished compiling, thank you. Gentoo user, obviously.But as others in this subthread have also said, binary patching is practically useless for Linux. Even if most non-Gentoo users don't compile their own packages, the binaries are usually built by the distribution, not simply accepted from Mozilla.

So as a f'rinstance,/usr/lib/mozilla-firefox contains firefox-bin, 10.so's, and a whole raft of other components. WIBNI the build process itself could be incremental, kind of like 'make' has been

Not 100% correct. Micro$oft frequently has patches which state, 'only use this patch if you are suffering from the following computing affliction.' Ok, not that exactly, but it is just a variation on, 'if it is not broken, do not minor patch it.'

The javascript console bug has an annoying ass problem of spewing out tons of debug information for CSS errors, which no one cares about because you have to do so many hacks to get styles to look right in all browsers. Console2 was to fix this, but it hasn't been worked on in forever and isn't compatable with 1.5.X. 100 CSS errors every time you load a page gets annoying when you are searching for a few JS errors

A question, which is off topic, but not entirely:
Does anyone else have the problem that occurs sometimes when everything you type into the browser, every single character goes into the form, but it also pops up the "search" functionality and puts the character in there. It also loses focus, so you have to reclick back into the form field, and type the next character.
I have no idea what causes it, but I have to close my browser, and restart it.
If you don't know what I'm talking about you don't have it.

Go to Options->Advanced->General and deselect "Begin finding when you begin typing"

Even with this option turned on, it shouldn't do this when a text field on the page has the focus. And normally it doesn't, but from time to time Firefox start behaving this way. The only option at that point is restarting the browser. That's the bug the GP was talking about.

thats an incorrect solution, as both functions should work. I've had this same problem when using Sprint PCS's website, pretty routinely. I think this is a page loading issue, as it doesn't recognize that the text is in form, as opposed to search strings.

Yes I just got this problem after updating. It happens when I type an apostrophe or a slash into a form field, or even when I paste one. I also cannot use the up and down arrow keys in form fields now. The box for begin finding when you begin typing is turned OFF, so that is not the problem.

Where I work, I've been pushing hard to get the company to use Firefox instead of IE. I've got most people using it every day. However these are normal office workers, they don't click on the update icon (They don't even wonder about it), and I find that they're running an older version. Does anyone know of a way to add the update to a login script, so it is silently installed when they login? I've googled around, and maybe I'm not using the right search phrases, but I'm not finding anything useful. I'm even willing to download a whole new.exe file for 1.5.0.3 if I can figure out a way to have that auto-installed on the 35 machines here.

There is no such thing as a "denial of service" attack in a web browser. At worst it causes a crash, and potentially makes you lose unsaved data on some web forms.

If we're calling anything that locks your browser a DOS now, then how come this bug [nyud.net], which is over 3 years old and seems dead simple to fix, is not? I can make a browser DOS on any web page I want:

<script>while(true) alert('Boom!');</script>

Such a piece of code does not trigger the "script is taking a long time" message because it fires alerts. And the alerts are content-modal so you can't do *anything* to close the browser or tab causing the alerts. You have to kill it off.

No different from the "denial of service" bug mentioned in this posting.

I noticed some odd behavior after this update. Some pages had missing images. Clearing my cache fixed it. Not sure if it's the browser or a actual problem with the web sites. I only noticed a problem AFTER the update installed in the background AND went to the page. After restarting, I cleared cache and it's updated. One thing I wish would happen is that Linux distros would give us the choice of updating via the Firefox way or the Linux way (apt, yum or whatever).

Blah bla blah the world revolves around me and it should therefore conform to my every wish.

Far be it from me to rain on anyone's parade, but it's a valid point. It's nice to be able to auto-update software, but that process should remain as unobtrusive as possible. Let Firefox download the fix, keep it ready, and do an install next time I run the browser from scratch. Where's the harm in it?

I think the worst must be the Norton dialogs that pop up even when you have a full-screen game running, stealing focus and dropping you back to the desktop so that it can tell you that it just updated its virus definitions.

I *think* I've disabled all the notifications for things that it's going to do automatically anyway, but we'll see...

Not if you actually have an understanding of why it "leaks" memory and how you can fix it by changing a setting.

There are hundreds of memory leaks in Firefox. You can't fix them by "changing a setting".

Besides, what most people are reporting as "memory leaks" in Firefox are generally due to normal memory usage (which is about what other browsers, such as IE and Opera, use), caching, memory fragmentation, memory leaks in extensions and plugins, and blaming any random problems on memory leaks. Yes, Firef

Could it be that Firefox is crashing (a problem) and you're blaming it on memory leaks (nothing to do with the problem you're experiencing)?

Install the Quality Feedback Agent and turn it on when Firefox crashes. That will give Firefox developers the information they need to fix the crashes. Try Firefox 1.5.0.4 when it comes out. It should be far more stable than earlier 1.5 versions.

That would be undouted, wholehearted yes.
By all means, keep an eye out for updates that will patch vulnerabilities. But research them (both from the company's page and out on the interwebs) before installing. This may save you from the following problems:

1) Loss of necessary function in existing program (intentional or not)
2) Conflicts involving said program and others on your system
3) The (though currently unlikely) introduction of a vulnerability whereby a virus can spoof the auto-update routine.

Well, I do. Mostly because I'm an extension developer and I like to make sure that all of my extensions work with the latest version of Firefox, but also because I just find Firefox to be interesting software and news about it is almost never unwelcome on my screen. Slashdot is reserved regarding posting about Firefox compared to Digg, where even articles about speculation about point-releases are promoted to the front page almost immediately.

Well, I do. Mostly because I'm an extension developer and I like to make sure that all of my extensions work with the latest version of Firefox, but also because I just find Firefox to be interesting software and news about it is almost never unwelcome on my screen. Slashdot is reserved regarding posting about Firefox compared to Digg, where even articles about speculation about point-releases are promoted to the front page almost immediately.

I have installed 1.5.0.3 on multiple sytems with no problems. All extensions working fine and settings stayed the same. Perhaps you have anither problem that coinicdentally showed abot the time you performed your update.

It's entirely possible that you are correct. I updated it via the "Automatic Update" on 5 machines in our network before stopping the process. All of the machines have lost all of the extensions except for some reason... "DOM Inspector".

So, that removes security as a reason for using Firefox. Speed never was a reason, and it certainly isn't efficient memory usage. That leaves what, exactly, as a reason for using Firefox over Opera, or even IE7? That it's open source? That's a pretty lousy reason

IE7? You have to be joking right? Its still in beta and relies a lot on IE6 code. You know the code that recently had 2 giant security flaws exposed, and they along with others have not been patched. Better to stay with Firefox, at least when holes are found they are patched faster than any other browser that I know of.

No actually that's still less than Microsoft's IE and Windows patch sets. And Microsoft's patches more often than not involve critical bugs.

Open source is actually a pretty good reason. It lets people contribute and find these problems, helps them guide the development of the product, and lets them build all sorts of neat add-ons. The whole Opera thing just comes across as snobby and pretentious, just like your post.

"So, that removes security as a reason for using Firefox. Speed never was a reason, and it certainly isn't efficient memory usage. That leaves what, exactly, as a reason for using Firefox over Opera, or even IE7? That it's open source? That's a pretty lousy reason."

People like you who have never really understood what a security nightmare IE still is probably never will - so I won't waste your time on that. But you (probably intentionally) totally ignored proper rendering and standards support. IE7 fixes a

Um, IE7 as another poster said, isn't really secure. Many people find Opera to be an excellent browser, but it doesn't compare to Firefox for just one reason: Extentions.If you're using vanilla Firefox, might as well dump it and go with Opera, but if you've ever tried stuff like adblock, slashdotter, tabmixplus, flashgot, videodownloader, or any of the other awesome extentions, you won't be able to go back to any other browser.

How about, it follows the standards? You may not care, but my job as a web developer would be hell of a lot easier if all browsers did! Having to write "And if the browser is IE, use this horribly broken method of doing things instead because the IE devs didn't read the spec" code is a real nuisance.Also, irrespective of number of flaws, while the number of people using IE stays so high, my chances of browsing a page with a security exploit for my browser is dramatically higher when using IE (I should add h

I have been working on a webpage lately, and have been having some issues along these lines. I have a lot of experience with the old-style HTML, but very little XHTML/CSS so I've been trying to drag myself into the modern world by revamping the website to use DIVs instead of tables and such.

One of the things I did was go steal a CSS navbar. Even the example code didn't work right under IE6! Yet, and this is the amusing part, it works in IE7.

The short form of all this is that IE7 really DOES follow standards more closely than IE6...

Oh, yeah! Of course, the issue is twofold*: There are parts of the specs that IE6 implements incorrectly, and there are parts of the specs that IE6 doesn't implement at all. They've fixed some of the bugs, and they've added support for some of the missing chunks. There's still a lot of stuff that hasn't made it into IE7, but I personally can't wait until I can ignore IE6 and just code for IE7/Gecko/Opera/KHTML ins

Useful extentions (I am in love with NoScript), faster security fixes, a sounder security architecture, and whatever security benefits you get from being a less profitable target. Though every critical bug leaves me thinking harder about switching to Opera.

Sigh. Ever think that it's the unfixed holes that make the difference?

Many of the unpatched vulnerabilities aren't too serious as they are minor components that could be used in phishing attacks. That's not to say they shouldn't be fixed, but they're a far cry from execution of arbitrary code. Don't forget about the unfound or unreported vulnerabilities out there. Firefox is a relative newcomer to security and blackhat researchers. Fresh meat so to speak. If I were a company or government, I'd avoid it l

Watch out. You're going to see a Seamonkey and a Thunderbird in other places on that site. I know it's hard identifying different products by their individual logos. Car shopping must be a world shattering nightmare for you.

I think characterising firefox as "riddled with bugs" and asserting that people aren't too keen to recommend it as secure vs IE7 is very misinformed.

Neither of those statements are true, assuming that by "people" you mean a significant proportion of the people aware of Firefox and what it offers. Unless something drastic has happened while my back was turned I am pretty sure that almost no-one who uses firefox would consider it less secure than Internet Explorer.

As for being "riddled" with bugs, even if it were determined that Firefox had as many or more identified bugs of a comparable or worse severity than Internet Explorer, that still wouldn't change that fact that safe browsing is a lot more reliant on sensible behaviour than browser stability. The lack of ActiveX in Firefox is the real saviour as far as drive-by spyware installations are concerned. And for the slightly savvier user, Javascript whitelisting via the NoScript extension eliminates cross-site scripting exploits, without crippling necessary or useful functionality on trusted sites.

C'mon, this is Slashdot... Isn't it obvious?! Your parent is modded as troll because some of the moderators can't seem to differentiate between the ORIGINAL posting which was a troll, and your response which wasn't.

You can be sure SeaMonkey won't be dropped, the community takes care. For some users (mostly power users) SeaMonkey is much more useful, just look at the cookie manager or the preferences. Besides the SM/Mail has advantages over Thunderbird, I first had to write an extension (Folder selection) to make TB sort of usable for me. Sure enough it's good to be able to choose.

If the extension is actually still good for the new version, but has a specific version limit that prevents it from installing, the install file for that extension can be text-edited to work. I've used this with statusbar clock.

If all that's available is a.jar file for the extension, I've read that it can be decompressed with unzip, edited, and recompressed; and then it will work.

Since you're on a Mac, why are you using Firefox when you could be using Safari instead? Honest question.People accustomed to PC-world mediocrity may find Firefox satisfactory for their tastes, but Firefox pales in comparison to the legions of Cocoa-native Mac browsers. Even Jon Hicks, the talented graphic designer who designed Firefox's logo and icon, switched to Safari a while back after getting fed up with Firefox's sluggish performance, not to mention its wretched user interface and terrible rendering.